November 7, 2013

Quote of the day, or rather: quotes from other days much like today

From a 2007 NZPA(!) story about Dame Bazely’s inquiry into police misconduct:

Police have “unreservedly and unequivocally” apologised to the victims of the actions of the “few officers” whose actions were highlighted in Dame Margaret Bazley’s report into police conduct.

Dame Margaret’s report, released today, slammed “disgraceful conduct” by serving officers, finding 141 incidents in which there was enough evidence for police to be disciplined or face charges.

She said she had reviewed 313 complaints of sexual assault against 222 police officers between 1979 and 2005 and said there were times when police protected their own.

Dame Margaret said she saw evidence of some “disgraceful” conduct by police officers and associates, involving the exploitation of vulnerable people and there were also incidents of officers attempting to protect alleged perpetrators.

Police Commissioner Howard Broad said police were already acting on the findings of the report.

“We have learned from this process. We will own and fix any problems and focus on the future of police and policing in New Zealand,” Mr Broad said.

Senior police management are not performing, inept staff are being promoted and efforts to change the culture have stalled, a damning report into the Police says.

The State Services Commission report, the third since the Commission of Inquiry led by Dame Margaret Bazley reported back in April 2007, said urgent, co-ordinated and decisive action was needed now to improve the police culture.

Broad was critical of this report, and he and Police Union boss Greg O’Connor basically rejected it and called for further reports not be made public because it damaged police morale.

And, if you weren’t already angry enough there were attempts to reform the laws around rape trials to try and improve the low complaint and conviction rate for this crime. Back in 2009:

Rape victims will be given sweeping new protections during trials, with planned rules requiring judges to agree before a complainant’s sexual history can be raised in court.

Defendants accused of rape could also face a new test of consent meaning a woman would effectively have to have said ‘yes’ to sexual activity rather than simply not saying ‘no’.

Courts would be required to consider what steps an accused person took to establish consent under rules designed to make rape cases less harrowing for victims.

It is understood the measures will be outlined by Justice Minister Simon Power today. He is also tipped to outline plans to prevent the wrongful removal from New Zealand of children in custody cases, among measures aimed at reforming child protection and Family Court laws.

Mr Power has already asked the Law Commission to investigate giving judges a fact-finding role in sexual violence and child abuse cases through the introduction of elements of the European “inquisitorial” style of hearings.

If adopted, that would mean judges would collect and determine the facts of sensitive cases rather than them being aired before a jury – a process many victims say is more traumatising than the sexual attack.

It is understood Mr Power wants to go further by restricting the ability of defence lawyers to discredit rape complainants by trawling through their sexual histories.

Well, we definitely have progress as its not the cops doing the raping.

.. onto the sons.

Sarc aside I have been pleased enough with the cops getting on to crime early and pursuing non criminal solutions.. that seems to be working judged by falling crime rates; but how in hell did they miss some sort of proactive action from 2011 against these young rapists? At the very least they would now be able to say they had visited the family, outlined the complaint(s) received and warned parents and son(s) about the activities.

Why oh why was the public not warned about this group in 2011 and why were the FB pages not taken down?

Its incredibly damaging to the police that two of the perps are a cop’s son and another that of a celebrity.. couldn’t they see that back in 2011?

While not saying it’s all a bunch of mullshit, I do think we need to think carefully about what ‘reported crime’ means. Apprently there are levels, and layers within levels, of what ‘reported’ means; mostly depending on what the Police do with the report.

Before a crime can be recorded in the National Intelligence Application, the matter needs to come to the attention of police. Research indicates that many crimes are never reported to police in the first instance. Crimes most likely to be reported include those that involve insurance claims and those where injuries require medical treatment.

A range of other factors are known to affect whether a crime is reported to police. These include:

the type of crime
age, sex, race, and ethnicity of the victim
relationship between the victim and offender
perceived seriousness of the crime, and
a perception of how police would deal with the matter.

All reports of incidents, whether from victims, witnesses, third parties, or discovered by police, and whether crime-related or not, will result in the registration of an incident report by police. The incident will be recorded as one or more offences if:

the circumstances as reported amount to a crime defined by law, and
there is no credible evidence to the contrary

or if

an incident was not reported as an offence, but upon investigation police determine that an offence is likely to have been committed.

Sometimes I think “Not *all* police are thugs; it’s just a minority who plant evidence. lie for each other, treat their parliamentary bosses with open contempt, and give the whole organisation a bad name.”
But then they keep on voting for Greg O’Connor as their representative.

Not really Ross. You’re a demonstrated liar who keeps trotting out stuff that tends to indicate you don’t really understand where society is going with this. Which is away from offering support to rapists. The fact that you are feeling defensive and banging on about pitchforks doesn’t hit a raw nerve, it delights me. If you are uncomfortable here, then like I said, you can toddle off back to KB, it’s still a safe place for you as yet.